Tenure security and soil conservation investment decisions: empirical evidence from East Gojam, Ethiopia

The purpose of this study is to investigate the mutual relation between tenure security and soil conservation investment and to examine the influence of other socio-economic and institutional factors on soil conservation investment and tenure insecurity. Additionally, the relationship between fertilizer use and soil conservation investment and subsistence farmers' fertilizer use and its intensity decision influencing factors are analyzed. A formal survey is conducted in two districts of East Gojam Zone of Amhara Region. The zone and the districts are selected because of their long time experience with soil conservation development activities and land re-distribution. A two-stage random sampling procedure is used to obtain sample households. Because the structural model represents a simultaneous binary choice system, the investment and insecurity equations are estimated using a two stage probit method. A sample selection model is used to estimate the decision of fertilizer use and its intensity. The results show that tenure insecurity is an important variable that affects the probability of investing in soil conservation technologies. However, the reverse relation is insignificant. Farmers' soil conservation investment decisions are positively and significantly related to slope, age, education level and public investment, whereas, tenure insecurity and distance from the main road have a negative significant influence on soil conservation investments. The analysis of tenure insecurity reveals that expectation of redistribution and farm size has a negative influence on tenure security, whereas education level has a reverse effect. The empirical analysis results of fertilizer use model reveal that fertilizer use is positively influenced by availability of credit and number of oxen, whereas age and education level are negatively influencing the decision of fertilizer use. Likewise, the intensity of fertilizer use is positively influenced by farm size and number of oxen. However, soil conservation investment has no influence on fertilizer use.